Military intervention

When you consider the various nations of the world and their people, we find a tremendous diversity. Each nation has a culture, that it may or may not share with neighboring nations, but usually, each nation has multiple culture's which taken as a whole form the overall national identity.

Now these sub-cultures, so to speak, are often not very harmonious. In fact we often find one of those cultures becoming dominant and attempting to subjugate or destroy adherents of the other cultures.

Of course, a country looking at a different country observes the conflicts and may or may not have an interest in which of the sub cultures become dominant, either because they share the views of that group or it is in their own best interests.

Over the centuries of human history this had led to multiple wars and incidents between sovereign nations. It has also led to many civil wars and incidents as one group wrests dominance from another.

The question that has to be addressed is when is one country able to legitimately interfere in the affairs of another country. Now, this obviously depends on the degree of interference we are talking about. For example, it is clearly acceptable to state opinions in almost all situations. For example, to simply express an opinion that a particular nation should allow more rights for a minority group and to expose them to the court of world opinion may upset the target but is clearly withing normal intercourse. Using the same example, if a nations engages in clear discrimination against a subset of its population, one may also use economic sanctions or by supplying one side in a dispute aid may be used as a way to ameliorate the situation. This type of action should be carefully considered, but while it may cause significant distress in the target nation, it is normally an action that may be taken without actual physical intervention.

Direct physical intervention, either by use of blockades or introduction of forces into another country is in fact an act of war. Sometimes it is justified because one faction has requested support to help it end an insurgency. However, today's insurgency may be tomorrow's government. When one nation intervenes in this way it should only be done when the intervening nation can show that it faces a clear and present danger from the situation.

It is not enough to argue that a situation may develop into a future danger, since using that argument one could justify nearly any intervention.